By Amin Kef Sesay
In New York this country’s Statistician General, Prof Osman Sankoh (Mallam O), was unanimously elected as the Rapporteur responsible for the reports of the United Nations Statistics Commission’s Sessions for a 4 year term (2020-2023), at the 51st Session of the United Nations Statistics Commission, the highest global decision-making body for Statistics.
Mallam O was unanimously elected by hundreds of heads of National Statistics Offices from around the world at the opening session of the 51st session of the UN Statistical Commission.
The 51st session of the UN Statistical Commission is discussing among other things, reports by the Inter-Agency Expert Group on SDG indicators(IAEG-SDG),the High Level Group for Partnership, Coordination and Capacity Building for Statistics for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as well as a report of the Friends of the Chair group on the future of Economic Statistics, and a report by the Bureau on a more coordinated and coherent structure and functions of groups operating under the auspices of the Statistical Commission.
Reacting on what it feels like representing Sierra Leone on a global stage like the UNSC, Prof Osman Sankoh (Mallam O) said, “I feel great and blessed for the opportunity but the country is more important! I must therefore thank Sierra Leone’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations which pushed through the nomination for Sierra Leone to be elected based on its conviction that we have competent staff at Stats SL to represent the country. Dr Francis Kai-Kai, current MoPED Minister, was the Ambassador at the time. I am grateful to him.”
On how he will use the position to improve on the work of Stats SL, Mallam O furthered, “My Management, Council and I will interact more closely with national statistics offices of other countries to identify best practices in the diverse areas of our work, see what we can learn but also help those who are behind Stats SL because we are also good in certain areas” he concluded.
